Is the Brain a Computer or an Antenna?

A model is only as good as its explanations of previous events and accuracy of future events.

What does your model predict and explain better than any other model? Is your model a simpler explanation?

> onion like slices,

So, nested hierarchies? They're pretty useful. But why the onion metaphor? Is there a centre? Do they have thickness? Is there an ultimate end or ultimate beginning? Are there other onions? Is there no cross talk between non-neighboring layers? How deep does your model go?

It's exactly the model I'm exploring in http://lambdaway.free.fr/lambdawalks/?view=esprit_matiere or in http://lambdaway.free.fr/lambdawalks/?view=memoire : according to this model data are not stored in our brain - which is nothing but but a transmitter-receiver station - but in a kind of cloud (somewhere in a parallel universe) where the memory of the world since the beginning is stored.

We have private access to it thanks to a DNA type key and sometimes, when this key fails, we can have access to portions of memory belonging to others. This model makes it possible to describe quite reasonably paranormal phenomena, telepathy, talking with the dead, near-death trips, dreams,... For example, two distant twins communicate ... because they share the same memory area to which they have the key. If I see my long dead mother in a dream, it is not because she would be alive somewhere, but because, in the secondary state of sleep and because our DNAs are close, I had a furtive access to a portion of her memory and, when I woke up, I painfully reconstructed a scenario in which she would have said a few words to me. Why not?

And if you wonder about the nature of this parallel space where the memory of hunanity is located, think about this ocean of electro-magnetic waves in which we are immersed and to which we only have access with the help of transceivers like our smartphones, radios, televisions, computers, ... which do not store anything.

What do you think of that?

There are "brain areas"(local brain chunks specialized in something) and "brain networks"(non-local connections like the default network). NNs seem be focusing in modeling specific "brain areas"(static capabilities) but brain is highly modular, 'neuroplastic' piece of machinery that is dynamic and evolving with brain networks being central to its 'learned capabilities'. so i'd have to say inter-area communications are more important aspect that is being neglected as the 'brain networks' are more complex to probe vs static brain areas. https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2020/februar...

I think it's mainly a competitive & cooperative self replicator. The brain exists because previous generations did well. Do we need to infuse "antenna magic" into our brains, aren't they marvelous enough?

I found this video about open endedness (contrasting evolution vs optimization) in the brain and AI very inspiring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhYGXYeMq_E

Also in my model intelligence is a property of layers, defined by how well they can simulate other layers using an API available to them (think about brain simulating physical interaction - lower level or simulating how the society might develop in the future - higher level). The more intelligent, the better the understanding of the surrounding reality. (I use predictive power as a measure of effectiveness of a theory / software that is instantiated on the higher level API). But if we build up artificial layers starting at an arbitrarily selected level - creating a different (unnatural) kind of feedback loops (species), can they simulate as broad range of layers as humans can (be as intelligent / think as much out of the box)? At which level do we need to start, to get close to what natural species are capable of? How much more complicated does the (AI) software needs to be to have equivalent predictive power considering it runs on hardware that provides a very restrictive version of the set of instructions natural species utilize?

(hardware refers to to the lower API a layer uses, software are feedback loops of the layer)

Maybe the mind is partially made of dark matter or influenced by it? There are current research explorations of whether dark matter and normal matter interact in ways other than via gravity:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180713093545.h...

So if the two kinds of matter can interact it may be possible that the mind is either partially made of dark matter or influenced by dark matter. Maybe our minds experience dark matter as a kind of "weather" that has some effect on our thoughts. Maybe it is responsible for times of widespread rationality or irrationality. As (or if) we learn more about dark matter it will be interesting to think about how it may interact with our reality, including our minds.

If you want to track consciousness track the data. Vision has the highest bit rate and is easy to track, your consciousness has to exist somewhere that can receive all that vision data, enough pixels to cover what you see. Not the raw data, but the modified data with the vision "glitches" we experience. That data exists in a very limited part of the brain, if the brain is an antenna it has to be sent from there, and sending it has to be structured enough that it hits exactly one consciousness and not the billions/trillions of others living nearby.

Whether you think that is possible is up to you. If that part of the brain had such a high bitrate antenna to send stuff we would probably have noticed by now, so I don't think it has that function.

The brain is a brain. All natural brains have stuff attached. If you want to attach stuff to your AI, go wild.

But if you imagine that to work it needs an antenna to pick up woo waves, my advice is to stop spending money on AI and take up another field.

The thing that bugs me about people comparing technologies to how the brain works or saying their technology is built like the brain is that yes, the brain has processing units that are connected, but the timing and speed of those connections is critical in the brain working properly. In large part this is mediated by the myelin sheath. If something happens to the myelin, like in multiple sclerosis, the brain starts malfunction even though the same connections are still there.

I'm open to the possibility that the mind could be a sophisticated communication channel. I recall reading about mothers feeling the distress of their child when they weren't physically near them. A woman I know had a similar experience.

The idea of the mind as a sort of antenna wouldn't be controversial to me.

I think both? It is a computer that emits and receives signals. It has IO interfaces that interconnect the entire body. It can even receive signals passively through induction and process them. That to me suggests it should be considered both antenna and computer and probably quite a bit more.

The onion analogy sounds accurate to me, based on random things I've read about the brain.

Not sure what you mean by antennas. Connections to the outside world? Connections that jump across the brain? Quantum effects?

An antenna is not a non local interaction. You mean interaction via a medium between non local things ? Eg having eyes , ears, etc?

I also don’t see the either or case making any sense here.